Make Your Telegram Agent React to Emoji Reactions with OpenClaw 2026.2.17

OpenClaw 2026.2.17 shipped with a small but powerful feature: Telegram reaction notifications. Your agent can now detect when users react to messages with emojis and respond accordingly.

Why This Matters

Emoji reactions are how people communicate feedback without typing. A thumbs up means "got it," a heart means "love this," and a thinking face means "interesting but I need to process." Until now, your OpenClaw agent was blind to these signals.

With reaction notifications enabled, your agent receives system events when users react to messages. This opens up workflows like:

• Feedback collection: React with 👍 or 👎 to rate an agent's response
• Quick confirmations: Heart a message to approve an action
• Trigger workflows: Use specific emojis to kick off tasks (🚀 = deploy, 📧 = send email)
• Sentiment tracking: Understand how users feel about responses over time

How to Enable It

Add this to your OpenClaw config:

channels:
  telegram:
    reactionNotifications: "all"  # or "dm" or "group"

The reactionNotifications scope controls where reactions are surfaced:

• "all" – Reactions from both DMs and group chats
• "dm" – Only reactions in direct messages
• "group" – Only reactions in group chats
• (omit or set to "off") – Disabled (default)

What Your Agent Receives

When a user reacts to a message, OpenClaw sends a system event to your agent with the reaction details. Your agent can then decide what to do—acknowledge it, take action, or just log it for later analysis.

For example, if you want your agent to respond to 👍 reactions:

## In your SOUL.md or agent instructions:
When you receive a reaction notification:
- 👍 reactions: Acknowledge briefly ("Noted!")
- ❤️ reactions: Save the message to favorites
- 🚀 reactions: Trigger deployment if the message mentions a branch

Practical Use Case: Approval Workflows

One compelling use case is building lightweight approval workflows. Imagine your agent sends a summary of proposed changes:

"I'm about to reorganize your Downloads folder. React 👍 to approve or 👎 to cancel."

When the user reacts, your agent can proceed (or abort) based on the emoji. No typing required.

Limitations to Know

1. Telegram API constraints: Your bot must have the right permissions in groups. In private groups, you may need admin rights to see reactions.

2. Anonymous reactions: In some Telegram configurations, reactions can be anonymous. Your agent sees the reaction but not always who reacted.

3. Rate limiting: Heavy reaction traffic could generate many events. Consider whether you want "dm" only if groups are noisy.

Try It Out

Update to OpenClaw 2026.2.17 if you haven't already, add the config, and send yourself a message. React to it and watch your agent receive the event.

This is one of those features that seems minor until you start building with it. Reactions are a natural communication channel that was previously invisible to agents—now they're not.

Feature credit: #10075 — Thanks @Glucksberg!